David Coulthard's faltering title hopes are poised to suffer another setback with the likelihood that he will not get his hands on his new car until September.

Coulthard's McLaren-Mercedes outfit had hoped to introduce the MP4-18 at the British Grand Prix at Silverstone next month - already 11 races into the campaign.

But the new car may not now be unveiled until the Italian round on September 14 when there will be just three races left in the season.

Even if the car does provide a major performance boost, the title could well be beyond Coulthard - and team-mate Kimi Raikkonen - by then.

Coulthard heads into Sunday's European Grand Prix at the Nurburgring in Germany trailing Ferrari's Michael Schumacher by 29 points while Raikkonen is three points adrift of the five-time champion having lost the lead for the first time at the last race in Canada.

McLaren have suffered a double blow with the new car after it failed its mandatory crash test while reserve driver Alexander Wurz also suffered a heavy shunt at last week's test in Jerez, Spain, when the MP4-18 suffered reliability problems.

"Some people are criticising us saying that we are late," said Mercedes boss Norbert Haug.

"But I see it that we are very early.

"We have a new concept and we have a baseline for next year much earlier than anybody else."